Planning to Meal Prep Before Labor

The other day I was scrolling through my Facebook  when I stumbled upon a story about a woman prepping a LOT of food in preparation for the birth of her next child (third or fourth one). She had made snacks, breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, and she had made plenty!!!!

This got me thinking about when our little man gets here in just 2 months!!!

Let’s face it the facts though. Braedyn is 10 and Sophia will be 9 before I go into labor. I am not as young as I was the last time I tried to do all of this. I managed to get my BS in Biology while raising those two as babies and work full time! Also, I had the myriad of campus food options, and I would LOVE to have some of Ball State’s baked ziti from Woodworth’s Dining just a walk down the sidewalk from me. However that isn’t the case unfortunately. Also, instead of just my adult mouth to feed and a small toddler, it will be two almost teenagers, me, and Kyle, since Kyle will be home on paternity leave (thank God) and both kids will still be on summer break (please send help). That is a lot of meal servings to think about.

So I am thinking about that now! While I am able to get multiple hours of sleep in a row and have much more energy and free time than I will soon.

Here is my thought process….

Kyle and I will both be home with a tiny newborn for two weeks, with both older kids home all day. We will both be exhausted, sleep deprived, yet still hungry, especially me since my uterus will no longer be smashing my stomach plus I’ll be breastfeeding a whole other human. Also, I have no plans for the baby and I to leave the house for the first 30 days at least except for his newborn check up, so grocery shopping will be left to Kyle, who will probably want to just grab the essentials and come back home to snuggle with the new baby.

We’ll need two weeks of meals and snacks for all four of us:

Breakfast – 14 meals x 4 servings = 56 servings

Lunch – 14 meals x 4 servings = 56 servings

Dinner – 14 meals x 4 servings = 56 servings

Snacks – 14 meals x 4 servings = 56 servings (if we are honest, the kids will probably eat more than one snack a day, and Kyle & I will probably have some midnight snacking occurring, so let’s round this up to 80)

Great. First two weeks are counted. So! Much!! Food!!!

Kyle, may be able to take leave after his paternity leave ends, but we don’t know, and it is the Navy, so we aren’t counting on it. Also, the kids should go back to school on August 17. This is also exactly 2 weeks after the baby’s due date, so possibly the same time that Kyle goes back to work. I might be going from three other mouths to feed (and three other helpers throughout the day) to none! That is so exciting! The kids eat breakfast and lunch at school and Kyle usually just does a yogurt and coffee before/at work and either a microwave meal or leftovers for lunch!

To get me through those next two weeks alone most of the day:

Breakfast – 14 meals x 1 servings = 14 servings

Lunch – 14 meals x 1 servings = 14 servings

Dinner – 14 meals x 4 servings = 56 servings

Snacks – 14 meals x 3 servings = 42 servings (I did three servings in case Kyle or I need an extra snack throughout the day or night, as well as if he wants to bring a snack to work)

So for the whole 4 weeks…… I need a total of:

70 breakfast servings

70 lunch servings

112 dinner servings

122 snacks

Thankfully I have found so many simple recipes that I can start to make and freeze ahead of time, including quick, reheat-able foods like blueberry scones or lactation encouraging cookies. Some of my lunches when everyone goes back to work/school will likely be simple things like a microwave dinner or a quick sandwich, so I don’t really need to make all 70 lunch servings now.

We got started on this list yesterday and managed to already get two full dinners (8 servings) done and frozen! We had the third as our lunch for the day. Kyle was a bit overwhelmed at all of the chopping he was doing (he is an amazing cook and does great cooking meals for us on his own too – I just love having him help me – it gives us some quality time together, even during quarantine), but I think it made more sense when I explained we were making three whole meals worth of Stuffed Pepper Soup, rather than just our one lunch.

Kyle is at work today, so the kids and I might try to get several more knocked out before he gets home and it is time to cook dinner. Tonight we are having Beef and Pineapple Curry, which is so delicious!!!!

Some of the things we are going to try to get knocked off our list today include:

Blueberry scones
Breakfast burritos
Ranch chicken tacos
Beef and broccoli
Steak fajitas
Italian zucchini soup

I’ll have to update you on that process later!!!